Despite a known link between a masculine-looking face and aggression in men, macho-faced soldiers didn’t survive Finland’s World War II Winter War in greater numbers than recruits with less masculine faces.

The macho-looking men did, however, have more children in their lifetimes than thinner-faced guys, suggesting that face shape is a sign of evolutionary fitness. …

The other findings were more surprising. For one, the wider-faced guys were actually less likely than narrow-faced men to rank higher in the military hierarchy. In other words, the higher the rank, the more likely the man was to have a narrow face. …

Second, Loehr and O’Hara found that face shape didn’t affect survival at all. A wider-faced man was equally as likely to die in battle as a man with a narrower face.